Workshop
brings a teacher and a group of students together to look at working samples
of literature--either stories or poems--and together they discuss
what makes those pieces successful. It also helps develop our own writing
skills by having our work "juried" by a group of our peers:
this helps us understand what is more successful and less successful in
our own work while also developing our reading and editorial skills.
Workshop
topics will include:
What
is fiction?
Writing fiction gives us the opportunity to escape our own lives through
the invention of character, setting and plot. Fiction is the art of
combining these elements to create a story that reflects both real life
and the imagination of the writer. Good fiction pulls readers into the
story, allowing them to live in the world that the author imagines.
What
is poetry?
Poetry is the process of re-investigating our lives through writing
to reveal our emotions, perceptions and ideas. Traditionally, poetry
was written using only meter and rhyme, but contemporary poetry focuses
more on sounds, images and open form.
Poetry
can be inspired by both reality and imagination, and often examines
small moments in a way that is unique and surprising.
The
poetry workshop will help students translate feelings, ideas and
memories- the raw material of poetry-into well-crafted poems. We'll
talk about the power of precise, imagistic language, consider how a
poem's shape on the page can communicate its meaning and pay attention
to the many ways sound play happens in poetry. Along the way, we'll
use found material to jumpstart the writing process, think about poems
as maps and treasure chests and discover revision strategies that help
us more accurately express what we want to say.
